06 Sep 2021

The Vice President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane, says Botswana has surpassed the set global standard of 10 per cent vaccination by end of September.

Mr Tsogwane said this in Parliament on Thursday, indicating that Botswana was now at 20.8 per cent full vaccination and 23.5 per cent first dose.

“We are determined to attain 50 per cent vaccination of eligible persons by end of September this year, since many of our people remain unvaccinated. We will continue until all Batswana are vaccinated,” he said. On COVID-19 outbreak and State of Emergency (SOE) in Botswana, the Vice President indicated that the COVID-19 was a scourge of unprecedented proportions with nothing of its kind having been experienced by mankind.

“COVID-19 is novel, meaning, it is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a global pandemic.”

He added that after Botswana experienced cases of COVID-19 in April last year, coupled with the rising levels of infection in the region and neighbouring countries and rising number of fatalities, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi declared the SOE.

“This was due to the low rate of testing of suspected cases in the country and cumbersome health protocols. The return of citizens and residents from high-risk countries also escalated the threat of the virus in our country,” he said.

Again, Mt Tsogwane said consultations with relevant stakeholders, came to a consensus that it was necessary that a State of Public Emergency be declared for the purpose of taking appropriate and stringent measures to address the risks posed by the pandemic.

This was done to safeguard and protect lives of residents and citizens of Botswana.

The objective of the emergency legislation put in place, he added, was to see Batswana emerging out of the scourge healthy.

On one hand, he said, Botswana was still a developing country and therefore, it was reality that the country’s health system in its current state could not deal with a fully blown COVID-19 epidemic.

“The challenge is further aggravated by the sparseness and vastness of the population, which makes it costly to deliver services as efficiently as government would for 2.3 million people. It was, therefore, necessary for the leadership to take action that would control the spread of the disease.

All such actions that were taken are in full compliance with the Constitution. The remedies were taken to prevent a full-blown disease. We have seen the devastating effects the pandemic has had on countries like the United State of America (USA), India, Brazil, Russia, United Kingdom (UK), France and Germany.”

Furthermore, he said the severity at which COVID-19 affected the world’s most developed countries, instilled lessons on Botswana, adding ‘had we not taken the measures we did, our people would have been decimated by the pandemic. The Public Health Act on its own would have been insufficient to facilitate appropriate taken to safeguard and protect our people from COVID-19.’

The Vice President also told Parliament that COVID-19 brought about a slowdown in the world economy and Botswana was not spared.

“COVID-19 has exacerbated existing growth challenges, leading to an estimated real gross domestic product (GDP) contraction of 7.9 per cent in 2020, the highest on record. The contraction reflects the impact that reduced global demand for commodities, travel restrictions and social distancing measures have had on output in key production and export sectors, including the diamond industry and tourism.” ENDS